


No, Dee Dee, no.

by tavvy_manga



Category: Cartoon Network, Dexter's Laboratory
Genre: Gen, Other, Protective Siblings, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26477218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tavvy_manga/pseuds/tavvy_manga
Summary: Dee Dee and Dexter, now adults, reflect on their childhood and their relationship in a new light following the death of their parents.
Kudos: 4





	No, Dee Dee, no.

**This is not edited and was written at 3 in the morning. Take it as you will.**

The summer heat was beating down on the sidewalk outside. Dee Dee and Dexter looked out the window of their parent's breakfast nook at the bright sun cooking the backyard, the broken fence, and the sidewalk beyond it as a few neighbors passed by completely unaware of the turmoil inside the O'Reilly house. 

"Dad really let the place go, didn't he?" Dexter said, his arms still crossed from earlier as he turned away from the dead grass of the yard to look at the disgusting kitchen. What was once their lovely childhood home no looked like a hoarders nest. The yellow wallpaper was greyed by dirt and filth covered the tile floors. He didn't want to touch any of it and was instead thinking about whether or not he could design some machine to do it all... like he used to as a child. 

Dee Dee still wasn't talking to him and hadn't moved from her spot by the window. Her arms hung limply at her side. 

She was in a daze, no doubt. Neither of them had known it was this bad. Dexter... well, now he wondered whether he had cared after their mother died. He never came home to visit, he barely even called unless Dee Dee reminded him too. Had he known their father had descended like this--would he have tried harder to stay in touch? The thought was filling him with guilt so he turned to another thought. He wondered if the stench of the house would be better or worse if he opened the window. Perhaps the heat of the day would cook the disregarded trash of the room, but there was also the possibility of a breeze pushing out some of the smell. He backed up a bit when he thought he saw something move, bumping into his sister's back. She barely budged at his touch, but at the very least had moved her gaze from the window to the room before them. 

Dexter looked at his sister now. She looked so... different from when they were kids.

As a child, she towered over him. Now she was still taller, but not by much and only because of the high heeled boots she was wearing. As a child, she pressed things she shouldn't press, bugged him, and... defended him. She kept his secrets and, as he learned, she defended him from a majority school bullies, odd questions, and jabs. Who was she now? Did he know? 

Not really. 

Because now she wasn't around him. Not since he moved out at 18 and never looked back. She didn't press buttons because she wasn't there. The only time she bugged him now was because he barely called and look how that turned out. Now she didn't know any secrets of his and he didn't know anything about her. 

Well, he knew that he had set aside a monthly payment for her as he had done with his father once his robotic company took off. It just made sense to him to share the wealth, if only to keep them out of his hair. But what she did with it was of little concern to him so long as she didn't bring him a lot of bad press. From what he could recall from his assistant, she was dating some guy in her dance company, or was it something else? He couldn't even remember if she did dance anymore. 

"I'll handle the mess," Dee Dee said as she put a hand over her mouth and looked around the room once more. She didn't look at Dexter. In fact, she avoided him in her glance of the room. 

"I'll hand it," Dexter said, his tone meant to be comforting or affirming but instead sounded cold and critical. Dee Dee scoffed rolling her eyes. Before shooting him a pained look. Her eyes, brimming with tears and a strained smile gracing her otherwise pretty face. 

"Don't, Dexter. Just, go." Dee Dee said, making her way in careful, large steps over the piles of trash towards the exit that would take her deeper into the hoarders hell. 

"Dee Dee--" Dexter said, following after her, jumping over the spot he thought moved earlier as he followed. 

She was moving pretty quickly, making her way up the stairs avoiding the piles of stacked newspapers as best she could. 

"Dee Dee!" Dexter called again as he climbed up after her. As she came to the top of the staircase, he saw a look on her face that brought back memories of the night he walked out. It was a look that seemed to say she knew what was about to happen but didn't want to believe it despite deciding to face it head-on. Seeing it distracted him and he slipped on a loose paper, falling to his knees and touching something gross. 

His mind went back to that night five years ago, the last night of his 17th year when he was a teenager waiting for the clock to strike 12 with a bag full of belongings he planned to take with him. 

Their mom had died two years ago and their dad fell apart. Dexter had just finished his college degree then and was there for the last two months of her fight with Cancer. All of his genius couldn't cure it despite his efforts to study medicine and robotics. He felt defeated and it made him give up the medicine part of his educational efforts. He and his dad got into it constantly and he tried running away only to have the police bring him right back. Dee Dee had taken a semester off that turned into her dropping out following their mother's deather. At first, it was only temporary to help care for their dad and him. However, it became permanent pretty quickly afterward when their dad got drunk and drove himself into a tree before assaulting the officer that tried to help him following the crash. He remembered her signing guardianship papers when the courts ruled their father unfit soon after that. 

He remembered feeling guilty every time she came home with groceries, every time she pulled their father from his drunken mess on the couch to the bathroom, every time she picked up a cleaning utensil, and every time he saw her after that moment. 

Because he felt like he trapped her there. Because he felt trapped there. His inventing had stopped as had his will for machining and building tech that programmed at home, his primary source of income. He was stifled. He sold everything he could from his lab and decided to just wait until he was old enough to leave everything behind. 

It was then that he and Dee Dee really stopped talking. She had tried to help him, but he pulled further, and further away the more she reached out until the day he turned 18 and left. 

He remembered walking out of the house, hoping to miss her or maybe pass her by on his way out but without the confrontation. She was in her work uniform--a vintage diner dress with an apron. She looked exhausted. One arm leaned against her car the rest of her leaned over looking at the ground before looking up at him. Her face was pale and sad looking but she smiled warmly at him when she saw he had opened the door before seeing the bag on his shoulder. Her expression changed. Her blue eyes steeled with a grim frown. But she let him pass. She let him walk away and watched him hop onto his moped and leave. He never looked back at her even though he could feel her eyes follow him down the driveway and could hear his dad making ruckus after him. 

Only then did his ability to create come back. When he ran away. 

Now, five years later, in this mess, he realized she must have run away too. 

He pulled himself up and continued to follow Dee Dee up the stairs. He turned the corner and saw her entering her old room. 

He ran to follow and came to the doorway. 

The room was a mess too. Things had been trashed like a grown man had come in and kicked holes in the wall. Dirt was everywhere and Dee Dee was standing in the middle. She turned around, looking all over the floor at the shattered glass from picture frames. She covered her mouth to try and stifle a sob. 

"It's the same" she muttered as Dexter came closer, his hands reach out to grab her elbows--a habit he had as a teen when she looked like would cry over their mother's treatment. 

"What?" She collapsed in on herself, held up by Dexter's grip as the tears came pouring down. 

"That night. I left. After you left. After you left, I left." She cried, "Dad threw a fit, he started breaking things and I couldn't take it anymore because I was only staying for you but you left without even saying goodbye and I knew you weren't coming back so I tried to pack a back and he just broke everything. All the pictures, the walls. I-i-i-i. Dexter--it's all the same. It's all here. The broken glass--he didn't even bother t-t-t-to try. Five years!" She said in a flurry as she sobbed. He pulled her closer, unsure of what else to do.

"I only called. I only called. I should have come back," She cried. "I should have tried harder," She cried.

"No, Dee Dee, no. It's not your fault." He held her closer because he didn't know what else to say.

 _Tried harder?_ That's what he should have done. 

**To be continued? **


End file.
